Special Needs Dad: Why He’s so Special

Posted by Maura 5 Boys on 17th June 2015 Additional Needs

He built lego monuments and fixed bikes, basically all the fun things that dads do.

Mums (in my eyes) look after the house, do the taxi runs to football, swimming lessons, youth clubs and after school activities, I cuddle them when they are sick and bandage the cut knees.

Well that turned around big time when I was admitted to hospital 10 weeks before our due date with baby number 5 now known as Jack.

Ronan became the Dad that did the house work, the school lunches, the school runs. He was the taxi driver and still had to work to bring in the money.

He did the 100 mile journey every day to visit me while I lay in hospital on complete bed rest protecting our wee bump who doctors feared may not make it…

With not enough hours in the day to even sleep, I really don’t know how he did it and he never once complained or grumbled about what he was doing.

Other family members and friends came to the rescue and made dinners and looked after the other boys while he worked and never missed an appointment or scan relating to Jack….

6 years on and I can safely say he’s a fantastic Dad who works really hard and still attends most if not all of Jack’s appointments.

Ronan is one in a million, he juggles his work and his love for cycling and running around all us.

Some days he comes home from work and if I’m having a particularly hard day with Jack, poor Dad will have to start dinner or take Jack out until I get dinner ready or maybe just order a takeaway, he takes the other boys to places they want to go too, and that’s a lot, lol.

While I deal with all the form filling, the filing and organising of appointments which certainly takes its toll on you, it can be overwhelming at times and sometimes the extreme volume of it all leaves you so exhausted you just want to throw the towel in.

That’s when Ronan jumps in to the rescue, he will sort the hard to get appointments and deal with the letters to local MPs, liaise with consultants to get what Jack needs.

I suppose I better say he deals with my nagging as well but he’s used to that after almost 20 years of marriage lol.

He’s our rock and we’d be lost without him, he’s the most fun, loving, caring, dad and husband you could ask for, he’s there to pick you up on a bad day, say hi when you’ve not had any adult conversation for hours, whisper I love you on extremely hard days, hold your hand and hug you just because he knows it's what you need…

And while he carries the weight of the world on his shoulders with trying to keep us in the luxury things that we have, he will continue to provide for us all, maybe we should be more thankful and ask him more about how is day is?

But I don’t think it would matter because even if he’s had a bad day he’d just get on with it and not complain, we wouldn’t change a single thing about him and we wish him the best Father’s Day ever and love him so much.

Don’t forget to enter the #FireflySuperdad Competition